The present invention relates to a food scoring knife, in particular, an ergonomic food scoring knife for scoring bread dough.
In order to facilitate rising in the desired area of the loaf, and to avoid bulging, cracking, and exploding of the expanding loaf, the surface of the bread dough needs to be slashed. When the surface is slashed, the dough is able to vent and release pressure built up in the dough caused by the oven heat during the baking process.
The dough is generally slashed down the middle of the loaf, and/or around the sides. Decorative slashes are often used for bread such as baguettes. These decorative slashes are diagonally placed at spaced apart intervals along the top surface of the dough.
In an effort to avoid the dreaded explosion in the baking oven, the user often slashes the dough too deeply using a standard kitchen knife. The dough should be slashed to a depth that does not exceed about xc2xc inch, which would seem to be too shallow to the untrained baker. It is therefore desired to have an instrument that slashes dough to a maximum depth of about xc2xc inch.
A food scoring knife of the presently preferred embodiment has an ergonomic handle portion and a head portion. A bottom edge of the handle portion is convex, while a bottom edge of the head portion is linear. During scoring, the user applies gentle pressure to the scoring knife, in particular, by placing fingers his paper or fee is being deposited with the on a tapered finger rest, and at gripping indented sides of the handle portion. A tapered blade in the bottom edge of the head portion has a sharp cutting edge angled back toward the handle portion. The sharp edge slashes the surface of the food item as the scoring knife is pulled by the user. The convex bottom edge helps the user avoid dragging a bottom surface of the handle portion along the food item while scoring.